Support "burning" to a USB drive

[WallyWallWhackr]

Hey guys -n- gals,

 

I am enjoying your product greatly, and I have noted that I have to jump through thousands of hoops to get an extracted boot image, which your tools perform perfectly, transferred over to a USB drive, instead of an optical disc. If you guys could add this as a feature of your package tools, it would curtail the need for yet another applet to do the job. You already allow an authoring session to be written to a file. I do not think it would be that hard to add the capability to send the compiled "image" to a properly partitioned USB drive. You could also add the partitioning tool as well.

 

Just a thought to make an already absolutely great product into an even better tool for computer users.

[WallyWallWhackr]

You know, I am just interested in the app being able to compile the image. A fat, fat16, or fat32 or NTFS image. You do not need to jump through the hoops of layer translation or the actual write operation to the drive, just take your boot sector extraction capability one step further and make it capable of authoring an "image file" that is similar to the authoring session you compile for an optical disc. Jeez, you could have at least replied.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I'd already replied to a similar thread the other day, I try to avoid repeating myself where possible.

 

First you ask me to make it write an ISO to a USB drive, now you want me to compile images with FAT, FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS file systems. None of those file systems are anything to do with optical drives/discs so building (which is what 'compile' means to me) one is not something I know how to do (or care to find out how to do). File systems are/can be complex things you know.

 

Yes it's easy to just read every sector from any given drive and put it into an image file, but reading something doesn't damage it. There are a million and one things that could mess up if I start allowing writes to physical drives too, plus the OS often gets in the way and prevents you writing to certain sectors.

 

Maybe one day I'll add something to the 'Tools' menu for it (if I feel the whole 'writing images to USB drives' thing is really taking off), but until then you'll have to stick with the tools that are already available for doing exactly that job.

 

i.e. https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer

and

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fshounen.ru%2Fsoft%2Fflashnul%2F&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ru&tl=en

[WallyWallWhackr]

I'd already replied to a similar thread the other day, I try to avoid repeating myself where possible.

 

First you ask me to make it write an ISO to a USB drive, now you want me to compile images with FAT, FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS file systems. None of those file systems are anything to do with optical drives/discs so building (which is what 'compile' means to me) one is not something I know how to do (or care to find out how to do). File systems are/can be complex things you know.

 

Yes it's easy to just read every sector from any given drive and put it into an image file, but reading something doesn't damage it. There are a million and one things that could mess up if I start allowing writes to physical drives too, plus the OS often gets in the way and prevents you writing to certain sectors.

 

Maybe one day I'll add something to the 'Tools' menu for it (if I feel the whole 'writing images to USB drives' thing is really taking off), but until then you'll have to stick with the tools that are already available for doing exactly that job.

 

i.e. https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer

and

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fshounen.ru%2Fsoft%2Fflashnul%2F&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ru&tl=en

 

An "ISO" is nothing more than a compiled authoring session for optical disc. Using the term ISO and the meaning "compiled authoring session", it is not a stretch to have expected you to understand what was meant. Or maybe it was. Then, you CRY about making the file format of the compiled session that of a specific file system type, which if you did not merely cut and paste this app together, you would have fairly deep knowledge of as well. You also have your app extracting a boot sector from a DOS file system disk, yet you have no problem writing that extracted file out. The request to have your application, which is essentially a tool for putting together an authoring session, write out to other than an optical device is not that much to ask or even want to achieve.

 

It appeared from the answer to the other person that asked that you think that the write session to a USB is where the problem would occur and that you would have to translate the workings of hundreds of brands of flash drive to your application. I do not think that there is a problem, since any inserted flash drive gets recognized by the OS, and gets mounted already. And finally, yes, it WILL become more and more popular. Particularly when more and more computers are being assembled without a floppy drive and with USB booting capacity. It pretty much goes without saying. But hey... if you want to remain a half decade behind the rest of the world, that is your gig. I am sure that other authoring tools will emerge where the author is not so stubborn as to be thought of as being bone headed.

 

As far as existing tools go, they ALL ONLY allow a SINGLE partition to be made on the stick. I want a boot partition, and then additional partitions. No, I know that you did not make a partitioning tool, you made an authoring tool, but we are not talking about partitioning a hard drive, we are talking about prepping and using a USB drive, and I thought that my suggestion to you would vault you to the top of the heap in user tools. The choice is, of course, yours. But if you think there is no demand, then why not simply run the poll, or do a few quick google hunts that would show you that there are hundreds of folks out there manipulating their flash drives. A USB drive is not 'monitored' the same way standard hard drives are, and besides, your app could easily gain full access to any USB drive as they have about the same level of 'tamper proofing' that a floppy drive does, and I know of no sectors that are unavailable except on a drive that someone shouldn't be using for the purpose anyway, such as encrypted drives that have proprietary code segments on them and proprietary drivers on the host machine as well. It really doesn't matter as you are going to do whatever you want anyway, and the enticement of having the ultimate tool doesn't motivate someone who is fat, dumb, and happy with what he has. Thanks anyway.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Just because a mechanic can work on a car engine doesn't mean he can work on a jet engine... but they're both engines!

 

File systems are like that too. I have no reason to be able to understand FAT/NTFS or know how to parse them as I have no reason to build one.

 

When you read a drive sector by sector it doesn't matter what file system is on the drive, you're working at a level where it's not an issue. So yeah, whilst Read / Write mode type support could be added for USB drives, Build mode type support never will be.

[Teoh Han Hui]

Please add support for writing disc image file to a USB flash drive. That's a very common use case nowadays seeing that netbooks are popular and they typically don't have an optical disc drive. Read/build modes for USB flash drive appear unnecessary to me.

 

Thanks!